[Christien]

The point has been made a couple times in this thread that law-abiding gun owners in the US, i.e. those with proper registration, permits, whatever you need, aren't the ones committing the gun crimes, or at least they're responsible for an extremely small percentage. This makes sense. What good is gun control when the crimes are being committed using uncontrolled guns? The Canadian government made a weak (and very costly) attempt at instituting a nation-wide gun registry, and all I could think of was what the hell good is that going to do? Are the criminals really going to show up and say "uh, yeah, I'd like to register this AK, even though the serial #'s been scratched off..."?

I think the whole gun issue has a lot more to do with fear and paranoia. I'm an outsider looking in (to the US) and what we tend to see is a lot of paranoia - self defence, terrorists, etc. especially within the media. Seriously, handguns are NOT going to protect you from terrorists. Since 9/11 every airline incident makes headlines, even if it's just some drunk moron that ends up getting arrested. Do you REALLY want every plane in the sky to be half-full of gun-toting vigilantes who think everyone acting up on a plane is a terrorist? You'd have a much higher body count than 9/11 in a few weeks. Ok, I'm slipping into hyperbole a little here (which seems to be the order of the day when discussing guns, abortion, religion, etc.) but there's no way I'd set foot on an airplane if citizens were allowed to carry guns on it. The fear factor seems to be multiplied on an airplane, compared to, say, in a shopping mall.

I can completely understand wanting to own guns for collecting, sport (target shooting, hunting), pretty much any reason except self-defence. Wasn't there a stat somewhere that said you're more likely to be injured or hurt by your own gun? I think responsibility is the real issue here. While I don't agree that a gun is the same as any other potentially dangerous tool or device (cars, hammers, drills and skills saws weren't designed with injury or death in mind) I do believe that a dangerous device in irreponsible hands is the problem. But then, I highly doubt that even irrespobsible but legal gun owners are behind many gun deaths or injuries. I really don't believe that gun crime perpetrated by criminals with illegal weapons will be solved by gun control.